I started out writing in heavily cadenced free verse in my 20's. As I learned more about meter, I started to gravitate to that. However, the original free-verse tendency never left me.

Today, I write out my lines counting syllables as I go. Counting syllables just helps me to get the poem into rough form. If I am aiming for iambic pentameter, I'll end up with lines in the range of 9 to 11 syllables. Some lines will have four accented syllables, some will have five, and some will have six. The problem (if it's a problem) is that if the lines sound good to me, I will often leave them as they are. Consequently, I rarely achieve perfect IP. Some lines will scan as iambic tetrameter and some will scan as iambic pentameter, and many of the lines will have frequent anomalies (although many will be perfectly iambic).

Non-poets who read my poetry have no problem with it, while formalist poets get bent out of shape over the imperfect meter. My advice to them is, "Read it as if it were free-verse" -- but because the poem comes close to sounding like metered poetry, they still don't like it. Without a doubt, I'm stretching the envelope. My tendency is to feel that poetry in general is headed in my direction: cadenced but not rigidly metrical.

Nonetheless, I want to discuss the issue of metrical anomalies. I'm curious to know what people consider acceptable and unacceptable.

Here's the second stanza of a poem about a friend dying in a hospital. The form is four lines of IP and one line of iambic trimeter.

Such faith they had once to crane their faces in
The breeze, and reach green arms to birds and sun;
The motherly sun, which warms my nervous thighs,
Which nurtured once their petals’ sheen, will presently
Turn their petals dry ...

The fourth and fifth lines are the problem:

which NUR / tured ONCE / their PET / al's SHEEN / will PRES / ent ly
x TURN / their PET / als DRY

The fourth line would appear to have six feet, with a pyrrhic as the final foot. However, since the lines run together, and since the first foot is a headless iamb, I read them like this:

which NUR / tured ONCE / their PET / al's SHEEN / will PRES
ent ly TURN / their PET / als DRY

.. as if the first foot of the fifth line were an anapest. And since anapests are acceptable substitutions in iambic meter, I feel that these lines are okay as they are. But I'm curious to hear other people's opinions. (Note: Frost slipped anapests into many of his iambic poems -- "Mowing" is a good example.)

(05-08-2014, 05:04 PM)Caleb Murdock Wrote:  I started out writing in heavily cadenced free verse in my 20's. As I learned more about meter, I started to gravitate to that. However, the original free-verse tendency never left me.

Today, I write out my lines counting syllables as I go. Counting syllables just helps me to get the poem into rough form. If I am aiming for iambic pentameter, I'll end up with lines in the range of 9 to 11 syllables. Some lines will have four accented syllables, some will have five, and some will have six. The problem (if it's a problem) is that if the lines sound good to me, I will often leave them as they are. Consequently, I rarely achieve perfect IP. Some lines will scan as iambic tetrameter and some will scan as iambic pentameter, and many of the lines will have frequent anomalies (although many will be perfectly iambic).

Non-poets who read my poetry have no problem with it, while formalist poets get bent out of shape over the imperfect meter. My advice to them is, "Read it as if it were free-verse" -- but because the poem comes close to sounding like metered poetry, they still don't like it. Without a doubt, I'm stretching the envelope. My tendency is to feel that poetry in general is headed in my direction: cadenced but not rigidly metrical.

Nonetheless, I want to discuss the issue of metrical anomalies. I'm curious to know what people consider acceptable and unacceptable.

Here's the second stanza of a poem about a friend dying in a hospital. The form is four lines of IP and one line of iambic trimeter.

Such faith they had once to crane their faces in
The breeze, and reach green arms to birds and sun;
The motherly sun, which warms my nervous thighs,
Which nurtured once their petals’ sheen, will presently
Turn their petals dry ...

The fourth and fifth lines are the problem:

which NUR / tured ONCE / their PET / al's SHEEN / will PRES / ent ly
x TURN / their PET / als DRY

The fourth line would appear to have six feet, with a pyrrhic as the final foot. However, since the lines run together, and since the first foot is a headless iamb, I read them like this:

which NUR / tured ONCE / their PET / al's SHEEN / will PRES
ent ly TURN / their PET / als DRY

.. as if the first foot of the fifth line were an anapest. And since anapests are acceptable substitutions in iambic meter, I feel that these lines are okay as they are. But I'm curious to hear other people's opinions. (Note: Frost slipped anapests into many of his iambic poems -- "Mowing" is a good example.)

I can often gauge my meter when I try to sing what I write to the tune of Gilligan's island. But that's because it is often in ballad meter. However, I think when you vary the meter without intended effect then you are damaging the underlying rhythm.

sorry but you're not even stretching your arms.

lines of iambic pentameter need only have three iambic feet. most people in the know...your formalist idiots actually know this to be so.

the soliloquy from hamlet, written but shakespeare that iambic meter guy....count the feet the first line count the iambs
count the iambs on the first 5 line. then have a peep at the sixth.



To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;

in general i'd tell somebody the meter was off unless i knew they understood the iambic rule, i only know this because i was shown it by a few members on the site. i'm not very good with meter but bad meter is bad meter. if someone who really knows what good meter is tells you you have bad meter, believe them. you either know it or don't know it. to assume you know it doesn't cut the mustard.

---

Such faith they had once to crane their faces in

can you show where the stressed and unstressed syls are please.

---

i'm not so sure you have a good example of a poem

(05-08-2014, 05:34 PM)billy Wrote:  sorry but you're not even stretching your arms. (I don't know what you're referring to.)

lines of iambic pentameter need only have three iambic feet. most people in the know...your formalist idiots actually know this to be so. (Judson Jerome estimated that 40% of most IP poetry consists of variant feet, but I still don't get your point.)

the soliloquy from hamlet, written but shakespeare that iambic meter guy....count the feet the first line count the iambs
count the iambs on the first 5 line. then have a peep at the sixth.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;

in general i'd tell somebody the meter was off unless i knew they understood the iambic rule, i only know this because i was shown it by a few members on the site. (What is the iambic rule?) i'm not very good with meter but bad meter is bad meter. (What is the bad meter that you are referring to?) if someone who really knows what good meter is tells you you have bad meter, believe them. (How do I know who knows what good meter is?) you either know it or don't know it. (Seriously?) to assume you know it doesn't cut the mustard. (What exactly am I assuming?)

I'd love to respond to this, but I didn't understand much of it. The first six lines are good iambic pentameter with normal variants -- so what's the point?

SUCH FAITH they HAD ONCE to CRANE their FAC es in

(The "in" at the end takes a theoretical stress.)

Those are the stresses. There is more than one way to scan it, but it sounds nice to me as it is.

SUCH FAITH / they HAD ONCE / to CRANE / their FAC / es in

That's as good a scansion as any. Actually, when I read the poem aloud, I read it more like this:

such FAITH / they had ONCE / to CRANE / their FACE / es in

As I said, the "in" takes a theoretical stress, and the second foot (in this case) is an anapest.

---

(05-08-2014, 05:26 PM)Brownlie Wrote:  I can often gauge my meter when I try to sing what I write to the tune of Gilligan's island. But that's because it is often in ballad meter. However, I think when you vary the meter without intended effect then you are damaging the underlying rhythm.

But that's my point. The fourth and fifth lines, when read aloud, have good meter. It's only when they are scanned that they look off.

One of Shakespeare's sonnets starts with a line that has only one iamb in it despite the overall meter being iambic pentameter, yet the line is famous and everyone seems to like it:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
LET ME / NOT to / the MAR / riage of / TRUE MINDS

One of the techniques of good poets is to insert rhythmic explosions into their poems. It is the amateurs who write in perfectly regular meter. (Not always, of course. Pope's metrics were very regular, but then, some people think his poetry sounds monotonous.)

I'm a molossus man myself

(05-08-2014, 06:20 PM)Brownlie Wrote:  I'm a molossus man myself

Gee, that sent me to the dictionary. I didn't even know there was such a foot.

(05-08-2014, 06:20 PM)Brownlie Wrote:  I'm a molossus man myself

Oh, Brownlie, I'm confused enough.

(05-08-2014, 05:04 PM)Caleb Murdock Wrote:  I started out writing in heavily cadenced free verse in my 20's. As I learned more about meter, I started to gravitate to that. However, the original free-verse tendency never left me.

Today, I write out my lines counting syllables as I go. Counting syllables just helps me to get the poem into rough form. If I am aiming for iambic pentameter, I'll end up with lines in the range of 9 to 11 syllables. Some lines will have four accented syllables, some will have five, and some will have six. The problem (if it's a problem) is that if the lines sound good to me, I will often leave them as they are. Consequently, I rarely achieve perfect IP. Some lines will scan as iambic tetrameter and some will scan as iambic pentameter, and many of the lines will have frequent anomalies (although many will be perfectly iambic).

Non-poets who read my poetry have no problem with it, while formalist poets get bent out of shape over the imperfect meter. My advice to them is, "Read it as if it were free-verse" -- but because the poem comes close to sounding like metered poetry, they still don't like it. Without a doubt, I'm stretching the envelope. My tendency is to feel that poetry in general is headed in my direction: cadenced but not rigidly metrical.

Nonetheless, I want to discuss the issue of metrical anomalies. I'm curious to know what people consider acceptable and unacceptable.

Here's the second stanza of a poem about a friend dying in a hospital. The form is four lines of IP and one line of iambic trimeter.

Such faith they had once to crane their faces in
The breeze, and reach green arms to birds and sun;
The motherly sun, which warms my nervous thighs,
Which nurtured once their petals’ sheen, will presently
Turn their petals dry ...

The fourth and fifth lines are the problem:

which NUR / tured ONCE / their PET / al's SHEEN / will PRES / ent ly
x TURN / their PET / als DRY

The fourth line would appear to have six feet, with a pyrrhic as the final foot. However, since the lines run together, and since the first foot is a headless iamb, I read them like this:

which NUR / tured ONCE / their PET / al's SHEEN / will PRES
ent ly TURN / their PET / als DRY

.. as if the first foot of the fifth line were an anapest. And since anapests are acceptable substitutions in iambic meter, I feel that these lines are okay as they are. But I'm curious to hear other people's opinions. (Note: Frost slipped anapests into many of his iambic poems -- "Mowing" is a good example.)

Anapaests are not acceptable subs in IP. In fact all 3-beat feet will cause problems with the reading.

bill Wrote:the soliloquy from hamlet, written but shakespeare that iambic meter guy....count the feet the first line count the iambs
count the iambs on the first 5 line. then have a peep at the sixth.

Shakespear Wrote:To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;

when I scan the solioquy, I don't see perfect iambs through it, but I do see an even five stresses in every line. Maybe that, and the natural rhythm (for his time) is what makes it sound so great?

(05-08-2014, 05:49 PM)Caleb Murdock Wrote:  

(05-08-2014, 05:34 PM)billy Wrote:  sorry but you're not even stretching your arms. (I don't know what you're referring to.)

lines of iambic pentameter need only have three iambic feet. most people in the know...your formalist idiots actually know this to be so. (Judson Jerome estimated that 40% of most IP poetry consists of variant feet, but I still don't get your point.)

the soliloquy from hamlet, written but shakespeare that iambic meter guy....count the feet the first line count the iambs
count the iambs on the first 5 line. then have a peep at the sixth.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;

in general i'd tell somebody the meter was off unless i knew they understood the iambic rule, i only know this because i was shown it by a few members on the site. (What is the iambic rule?) i'm not very good with meter but bad meter is bad meter. (What is the bad meter that you are referring to?) if someone who really knows what good meter is tells you you have bad meter, believe them. (How do I know who knows what good meter is?) you either know it or don't know it. (Seriously?) to assume you know it doesn't cut the mustard. (What exactly am I assuming?)

I'd love to respond to this, but I didn't understand much of it. The first six lines are good iambic pentameter with normal variants -- so what's the point?

SUCH FAITH they HAD ONCE to CRANE their FAC es in

(The "in" at the end takes a theoretical stress.)

Those are the stresses. There is more than one way to scan it, but it sounds nice to me as it is.

SUCH FAITH / they HAD ONCE / to CRANE / their FAC / es in

That's as good a scansion as any. Actually, when I read the poem aloud, I read it more like this:

such FAITH / they had ONCE / to CRANE / their FACE / es in

As I said, the "in" takes a theoretical stress, and the second foot (in this case) is an anapest.

---

(05-08-2014, 05:26 PM)Brownlie Wrote:  I can often gauge my meter when I try to sing what I write to the tune of Gilligan's island. But that's because it is often in ballad meter. However, I think when you vary the meter without intended effect then you are damaging the underlying rhythm.

But that's my point. The fourth and fifth lines, when read aloud, have good meter. It's only when they are scanned that they look off.

One of Shakespeare's sonnets starts with a line that has only one iamb in it despite the overall meter being iambic pentameter, yet the line is famous and everyone seems to like it:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
LET ME / NOT to / the MAR / riage of / TRUE MINDS

One of the techniques of good poets is to insert rhythmic explosions into their poems. It is the amateurs who write in perfectly regular meter. (Not always, of course. Pope's metrics were very regular, but then, some people think his poetry sounds monotonous.)

You have scanned the line of Shakespeare wrong here, BTW.

If you are new to scansion you may want to at least learn that in English, three stressed or three unstressed syllables will not appear in a row as English is a cadence based language. It is informally referred to as the rule of three.

---

(05-08-2014, 05:04 PM)Caleb Murdock Wrote:  I started out writing in heavily cadenced free verse in my 20's. As I learned more about meter, I started to gravitate to that. However, the original free-verse tendency never left me.

Today, I write out my lines counting syllables as I go. Counting syllables just helps me to get the poem into rough form. If I am aiming for iambic pentameter, I'll end up with lines in the range of 9 to 11 syllables. Some lines will have four accented syllables, some will have five, and some will have six. The problem (if it's a problem) is that if the lines sound good to me, I will often leave them as they are. Consequently, I rarely achieve perfect IP. Some lines will scan as iambic tetrameter and some will scan as iambic pentameter, and many of the lines will have frequent anomalies (although many will be perfectly iambic).

Non-poets who read my poetry have no problem with it, while formalist poets get bent out of shape over the imperfect meter. My advice to them is, "Read it as if it were free-verse" -- but because the poem comes close to sounding like metered poetry, they still don't like it. Without a doubt, I'm stretching the envelope. My tendency is to feel that poetry in general is headed in my direction: cadenced but not rigidly metrical.

Nonetheless, I want to discuss the issue of metrical anomalies. I'm curious to know what people consider acceptable and unacceptable.

Here's the second stanza of a poem about a friend dying in a hospital. The form is four lines of IP and one line of iambic trimeter.

Such faith they had once to crane their faces in
The breeze, and reach green arms to birds and sun;
The motherly sun, which warms my nervous thighs,
Which nurtured once their petals’ sheen, will presently
Turn their petals dry ...

The fourth and fifth lines are the problem:

which NUR / tured ONCE / their PET / al's SHEEN / will PRES / ent ly
x TURN / their PET / als DRY

The fourth line would appear to have six feet, with a pyrrhic as the final foot. However, since the lines run together, and since the first foot is a headless iamb, I read them like this:

which NUR / tured ONCE / their PET / al's SHEEN / will PRES
ent ly TURN / their PET / als DRY

.. as if the first foot of the fifth line were an anapest. And since anapests are acceptable substitutions in iambic meter, I feel that these lines are okay as they are. But I'm curious to hear other people's opinions. (Note: Frost slipped anapests into many of his iambic poems -- "Mowing" is a good example.)

Counting syllables or counting stresses is not the way to write good metric verse - indeed it produces the opposite effect. You need to train your ear to produce natural rhythm and this is done through hard work, practice and study.

(05-08-2014, 11:28 PM)milo Wrote:  Anapaests are not acceptable subs in IP. In fact all 3-beat feet will cause problems with the reading.

Please scan "Mowing" by Frost. Judson Jerome, who studied and wrote about poetry his entire life, analyzed Frost's poety. Frost's mature poetry included many poems with anapests. In "Mowing", there is not one line that has less than 11 syllables. Inserting one anapest per line gives a poem a more relaxed, and perhaps more mature, cadence. So yes, you can put anapests into your IP poetry.

I just took a quick look at "Home Burial", and he uses anapests in some lines (perhaps 20%). The point is, he was wise enough not to be rigid. And no, anapests don't cause any problems with the reading.

I'll answer the other posts later.

(05-09-2014, 07:06 AM)Caleb Murdock Wrote:  

(05-08-2014, 11:28 PM)milo Wrote:  Anapaests are not acceptable subs in IP. In fact all 3-beat feet will cause problems with the reading.

Please scan "Mowing" by Frost. Judson Jerome, who studied and wrote about poetry his entire life, analyzed Frost's poety. Frost's mature poetry included many poems with anapests. In "Mowing", there is not one line that has less than 11 syllables. Inserting one anapest per line gives a poem a more relaxed, and perhaps more mature, cadence. So yes, you can put anapests into your IP poetry.

I just took a quick look at "Home Burial", and he uses anapests in some lines (perhaps 20%). The point is, he was wise enough not to be rigid. And no, anapests don't cause any problems with the reading.

I'll answer the other posts later.

The fact that writers use anapaests doesn't make anapaestic substitution in ip acceptable, it makes something else. For a clue as to what that be take this line:

Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun

perHAPS itwasSOME thingaBOUT theHEAT oftheSUN - anapaestic pentameter with common subs.

OK milo, let's see you sub trochee instead of iambs.
___________________________________________________________________________________________

You can't substitute anapest in IP, if you do it isn't IP is it? You can substitute a foot of anapest in a sonnet.
____________________________________________________________________________________________

For someone who has shown little ability to write in meter, he sure talks a lot about it.


dale the evil

(05-09-2014, 07:42 AM)Erthona Wrote:  OK milo, let's see you sub trochee instead of iambs.
___________________________________________________________________________________________

You can't substitute anapest in IP, if you do it isn't IP is it? You can substitute a foot of anapest in a sonnet.
____________________________________________________________________________________________

For someone who has shown little ability to write in meter, he sure talks a lot about it.


dale the evil

here is the general guideline I wrote for acceptable substitution in ip and posted to this site about a dozen times and while it isn't iron clad, it is a pretty good set of generally accepted principles:

Rules for ip:

Lines should have 5 iambs and nothing else.

Exceptions:

there are some acceptable substituions in ip. Substitutions should be used to add emphasis or add to the reading. Substituions should NOT be used because the author cannot find an acceptable iamb.

acceptable sub:

1. Trochees can be substituted for any of the first 4 feet though earlier is better. 1 trochee/line

2. Double iambs (pyrrhic-trochee) should be used SPARINGLY.

3. Headless iambs can be used for first foot (9 syllable iambic line starting with a hard accent). NOT to be used in first line.

4. Fem endings.

5. Spondees can be used as a sub for any foot although shouldn't occur in the first line and no more than 1 per line. Also, shouldn't occur in line with a troche.

as you can see, the only line that has only 3 iambs has a double iamb sub and it is to be used sparingly (once per poem would be overkill)

the only time it is acceptable to use 3 iambs in ip is with what is called a double iamb (pyrric/spondee)

(05-08-2014, 05:49 PM)Caleb Murdock Wrote:  One of Shakespeare's sonnets starts with a line that has only one iamb in it despite the overall meter being iambic pentameter, yet the line is famous and everyone seems to like it:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
LET ME / NOT to / the MAR / riage of / TRUE MINDS

One of the techniques of good poets is to insert rhythmic explosions into their poems. It is the amateurs who write in perfectly regular meter. (Not always, of course. Pope's metrics were very regular, but then, some people think his poetry sounds monotonous.)

sorry but you're scansion here seems to read wrong, i'm no expert but even i see a big fuck up with the first foot and a half.

i read this as almost perfect iambic, three strong iambs an two weaker iambs. me and to are stressed as are of and minds. true minds being one of the weak iambs. (of course i could be wrong and that's okay, it's not one of the easiest lines to scan) it's about which words william is giving emphasis to. when spoken true would be more muted than minds. minds being the most stressed word of the line.

---

mot to blow your trumpet for you, after i read this a good while ago, i did some digging and found a fair bit of corroboration, Google is indeed friendly. and it make a lot of sense after reading a fair few sonnets. most fit your patter and the ones that didn't were a bit harder than the others to scan...my scansion sucks. but i know see more than i used to.

(05-09-2014, 07:48 AM)milo Wrote:  

(05-09-2014, 07:42 AM)Erthona Wrote:  OK milo, let's see you sub trochee instead of iambs.
___________________________________________________________________________________________

You can't substitute anapest in IP, if you do it isn't IP is it? You can substitute a foot of anapest in a sonnet.
____________________________________________________________________________________________

For someone who has shown little ability to write in meter, he sure talks a lot about it.


dale the evil

here is the general guideline I wrote for acceptable substitution in ip and posted to this site about a dozen times and while it isn't iron clad, it is a pretty good set of generally accepted principles:

Rules for ip:

Lines should have 5 iambs and nothing else.

Exceptions:

there are some acceptable substituions in ip. Substitutions should be used to add emphasis or add to the reading. Substituions should NOT be used because the author cannot find an acceptable iamb.

acceptable sub:

1. Trochees can be substituted for any of the first 4 feet though earlier is better. 1 trochee/line

2. Double iambs (pyrrhic-trochee) should be used SPARINGLY.

3. Headless iambs can be used for first foot (9 syllable iambic line starting with a hard accent). NOT to be used in first line.

4. Fem endings.

5. Spondees can be used as a sub for any foot although shouldn't occur in the first line and no more than 1 per line. Also, shouldn't occur in line with a troche.

as you can see, the only line that has only 3 iambs has a double iamb sub and it is to be used sparingly (once per poem would be overkill)

the only time it is acceptable to use 3 iambs in ip is with what is called a double iamb (pyrric/spondee)

I hear a good deal of laying-down of rules, but you asked for opinion, and you have it. For some reason, I find your posts uncomfortable; it may be me. But what seems to happen, is that you end up quoting yourself. Surely, if you have a general problem, it would be better to express it in general terms, and if examples are useful, find them in the poems of well-known writers, or people posting here. Then when your problem is resolved in general, you can apply what you have learnt to your own work.

You put up something with an anapaest among the iambs. Milo told you he didn't think this a good trick. You then mysteriously laid your hand on exactly the same stuff, from Frost. You seem satisfied with the answers to your own questions. But it may just be me, of course. No need to reply.

I was joking milo.

Not just you eddie

(05-08-2014, 05:04 PM)Caleb Murdock Wrote:  I started out writing in heavily cadenced free verse in my 20's. As I learned more about meter, I started to gravitate to that. However, the original free-verse tendency never left me.

it's kid of paradoxical really that you equate free verse with heavily cadenced. what in fact you're saying is;

i write free verse with a lot of rhythm, ie meter. you do i'm assuming know what cadence is and relates to?

---

(05-08-2014, 05:04 PM)Caleb Murdock Wrote:  Consequently, I rarely achieve perfect IP. Some lines will scan as iambic tetrameter and some will scan as iambic pentameter, and many of the lines will have frequent anomalies (although many will be perfectly iambic).

i see what you did there....what do mean exactly

---

(05-08-2014, 05:04 PM)Caleb Murdock Wrote:  Non-poets who read my poetry have no problem with it, while formalist poets get bent out of shape over the imperfect meter. My advice to them is, "Read it as if it were free-verse" -- but because the poem comes close to sounding like metered poetry, they still don't like it. Without a doubt, I'm stretching the envelope. My tendency is to feel that poetry in general is headed in my direction: cadenced but not rigidly metrical.

what do you mean comes close to? do you mean there's a metered poem on the next page? so if it's not rigidly metrical is it partially metrical. what do you mean by the term "free verse"? and are you saying read the partially metrical free verse as though it has no metrical parts. how does one read any kind of meter as if there was an absence of meter? how would we even know to fake out the metered parts of the poem

Only among formalist poets can it be said that there is a rule of three. In this age of free verse, it should be clear that there are no rules. My effort to find a synthesis between free verse and metered poetry is certainly a legitimate thing for me to do; and since most of the feet in my poetry are iambs, it is fair to say that I am writing in iambic meter. Judson Jerome -- the person I learned more from than anyone else -- estimated that about 40% of the feet in the canon of great poetry are variant feet, and my variant feet come out to about 30% or 35%.

Here is my article on scansion in which I analyze that line by Shakespeare and also analyze Timothy Steele's scansion method: http://www.poemtree.com/articles/Scansion.htm

I owe a lot to Frost for writing "Mowing". He is doing in that poem what I want to do in my own writing, and he shows us that it can work. There are more iambs in that poem than anapests, so it can't be called anapestic pentameter; it is, in fact, iambic pentameter with variants. It turns out, by the way, that there are lines with only ten syllables; and I'm glad of that, because it further proves my point. Frost is showing us that it isn't necessary to be rigid in order to write beautiful poetry. A line with ten syllables will read as more succinct, and such lines are good for making a point. Lines that stretch to 12 or 13 syllables are more languid and good for descriptive purposes. There is an organic quality to our language, and Frost is showing us that.

I looked at "Home Burial" again, and the number of lines that go to 11 syllables are less than I said, perhaps 10%. Even so, Frost is showing us that it isn't necessary to be rigid.

(05-08-2014, 05:04 PM)Caleb Murdock Wrote:  Nonetheless, I want to discuss the issue of metrical anomalies. I'm curious to know what people consider acceptable and unacceptable.

Here's the second stanza of a poem about a friend dying in a hospital. The form is four lines of IP and one line of iambic trimeter.

Such faith they had once to crane their faces in
The breeze, and reach green arms to birds and sun; this line i think should have started with a stressed syl and have 4 and half feet. (i think)
The motherly sun, which warms my nervous thighs, something motherly warming nervous thighs sounds rather bizarre don't you think?
Which nurtured once their petals’ sheen, will presently this line has 12 syls, i thought you did 9 to 11 syls? because you say you see the 12 syls as running thus, does not make them run thus...they don't run thus. also the way you see it with a stressed start and a stressed end fucks up any flow you had. use 4 and a half feet and end with a stress. the previous line should start with an unstressed and end with an unstressed using 5 and a half feet, again, my meter's pretty sketchy so hopefully one of the formalists will help me out a little.
Turn their petals dry ...

The fourth and fifth lines are the problem:

i'd say the whole piece has a problem, the caps, the repetition, the bad meter. the quality of those lines aren't as good as you seem to think they are. of course that's just my POV